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Monday, February 22, 2016

Film Review: Bridge of Spies (2015)

In 1957 Brooklyn, New York, reclusive
amateur painter Rudolph Abel (Mark
Rylance) is sat in jail accused of being a soviet informant after having
his home raided by the FBI.After
refusing to put up a fight, he awaits his trial and is introduced to successful
law partner James B. Donavon (Tom Hanks),
who has reluctantly taken his case.

The prosecutors, his law-firm partners,
the public and even the judge all want Donavon to lose the case, yet after the
inevitable guilty verdict, his strong belief in fair representation and the
constitution convince him to appeal the conviction and spare Abel the electric
chair.

Meanwhile, Francis Gary Powers an
American pilot is shot down over the Soviet Union during a secret U-2 spy
mission at the same time as an American economics student finds himself on the
wrong side of the newly erected Berlin Wall.Donavon has shrewdly predicted this eventuality and begins to negotiate
a prisoner of war swap between the two super-powers.

Set just after the brutal paranoia of
early ‘50s McCarthyism, Bridge Of Spies
depicts the true beginnings of the Cold War.Just at the erection of the iron curtain, and a few short years before
the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, America and the Western occupiers
of Berlin are adjusting to the tensions between the two global empires.Yet in 2015 and the age of ISIS, Al Qaeda,
drone strikes and cyber attacks, there is something tamely anachronistic in
focusing (yet again) on the Cold War.Much like the Roaring Twenties and the Wild West, Hollywood seems so
obsessed with the 1950s that it is hard to be greatly inspired by another film
set in this period.

Having said that, early in the film as
Donavon is appealing Abel’s guilty verdict up to the Supreme Court, he is recognized
on the subway by citizens whom unanimously scowl at him in disgust above their
newspapers.By defending the rights of
the enemy, he has opened himself to accusations of subversion and treason.This simplistic us-and-them mentality has thrived
in America since 9/11, with the Middle East replacing Russia as the geopolitical
bogeyman.And with ISIS’ tendacy to
treat war prisoners/hostages with worse than contempt, maybe the level-headed
diplomacy of James Donavon could be a relevant message for whoever succeeds Obama
in the Oval Office.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by the Coen Brothers and photographed by Janusz Kamiński, Bridge of
Spies feels like it should be much more than the sum of its parts.Yet for all of its realism, lengthy dialogue
and (intentionally) dank set design – bereft of hope and optimism under a new
era of Eastern communism/fascism – the film feels as miserable as the
oppressive system that it depicts.I
felt like a prisoner-of-war-films, trapped in its claustrophobic interiors
learning very little about what was happening outside…